Aug 27,2007 00:00 by
Cheryl McDermott A 48-year old La Pine woman who walked away uninjured from a rollover crash on Highway 97 near the High Desert Museum south of Bend on Thursday afternoon told deputies that a mechanical failure may have contributed to the accident.

Deschutes County Sheriff’s deputies responded to the scene near milepost 145 about 1:45 p.m., August 24, Lt. Shane Nelson reported in a news release.

Preliminary investigation suggests that Eugenia Hooper-Kuhfuss was traveling north on the highway in a 2003 Mitsubishi Outlander when the passenger-side tires left the highway and traveled on the gravel shoulder for several hundred feet before the driver overcorrected the vehicle. The SUV skidded counter-clockwise across the oncoming lanes of traffic and slid into the gravel shoulder where the tires dug in, flipping the vehicle over onto its top, Nelson said.

Oregon State Police, Oregon Department of Transportation personnel, and the Sunriver Fire Department also responded to the scene.

“There were no reported injuries and the crash was not blocking the highway,” the lieutenant said.